Businesses seek a grail, and new Python book from SAS delivers

SAS®Viya™: The Python Perspective covers a wide range of topics from installation to advanced features and workflows.

Cary, NC
(Jul 19, 2017)

SAS® Viya™: The Python Perspective, a new book from analytics leader SAS, introduces data scientists, business analysts and developers to the Python client interface in SAS Viya.

SAS Viya represents the continued modernization of the SAS platform, addressing new use cases in analytics. Python is an open programming language popular with data scientists. It was created by programmer Guido van Rossum, who named it in homage to the legendary comedy troupe Monty Python.

Today, businesses in all industries seek a holy grail: the effective use of analytics to transform data into value and bottom-line results through improved risk management, reduced fraud, enhanced customer relationships and more.

By making SAS accessible to the Python language, programmers and technical users can build analytics that scale in production, helping to achieve faster business results.

SAS Viya: The Python Perspective was written by Kevin Smith and Xiangxiang Meng, senior members of the SAS R&D team with decades of combined experience in SAS and open languages like Python. Smith, in fact, developed the Python client interface for SAS Viya.

“This book takes you on a journey to learn and apply Python programming in the context of SAS Viya,” said Oliver Schabenberger, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at SAS. “Kevin and Xiangxiang’s deep understanding of the SAS Viya runtime engine, client architecture and the Python language shines through in every chapter.”

The book’s clear instructions and examples are accessible to first-time users, while later chapters can help even the most experienced programmers.

The book begins with the basics of connecting, loading data and running simple analyses. It then covers more detailed information, like constructing action from the application programming interface, and finishes with advanced topics like binary versus REST interfaces.

Programmers can browse the Python client interface source code and submit their own code contributions via GitHub, just as with other open-source projects. Once vetted and verified by SAS, code submissions are incorporated as if they were written in house. Software releases are available from both GitHub and the SAS support website.